There is a big difference between an equal opportunity for education and an equal opportunity for an equal education
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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

What Happens When Educational Reform Needs Reform?

I hate the word "reform." It really doesn't go to the heart of what education in America needs - a complete overhaul of the basic architecture as what we have built upon was laid in the mid-nineteenth century. The 21st century is substantially different.

The reality is that technology is there; education and learning can be completely customizable. However, the barbaric or if you would like to call it industrial, or militaristic infrastructure for educational operations won't allow full blown customization as it views children as scrap metal to be molded rather than thinking individuals that should be cut lose from the restrictions of our institutionalize infrastructure. Well, that, and individualized education will be highly expensive.

Even so, it seems crazy to me that we are at the cusp of considering personalized designer drugs bent around a person's DNA, but we can't talk about individualized and customized education woven around a person's learning styles. One seems less expensive than the other, but which one might save more lives?

Part of the trouble with fixing education is that "educational reform" itself needs reformation. The bigger question is, if we were to build out say, a completely LEED Platinum Certified equivalent of a new architecture for education across the board, what would it look like? That's not simply reform of what we have. I'm calling for a complete transformation of how we go about education in America. The time has come before the entire educational operation sags and breaks under the heavy bureaucratic malaise that has gotten us where we are today. Reform, as a practice, needs reform.